Chevron Uses Solar Power To Steam Oil Out Of California Field

Solar companies have been taking a lot of heat recently, mainly because of the lousy investments that politicians and bureaucrats have been making with taxpayers dollars in doomed outfits like Solyndra.

Sure, solar power has immense promise–but investing in solar is something that should be left to the venture capitalists, not taxpayers.

Here’s an example of my favorite kind of solar power investment — a project that deploys and utilizes solar not (just) to take advantage of tax credits or to make political hay, but because solar could well be a cheaper solution.

The technology, developed at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials, was selected from among more than 800 innovative product ideas submitted by scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in 60 countries.